And the cuckoo's sovereign cry With that beautiful soft half-moon, And all these innocent blisses? IX. 1804. COMPOSED UPON AN EVENING OF EXTRAORDINARY SPLENDOUR AND BEAUTY. [FELT and in a great measure composed upon the little mount in front of our abode at Rydal. In concluding my notices of this class of poems it may be as well to observe that among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets" are a few alluding to morning impressions which might be read with mutual benefit in connection with these "Evening Voluntaries." See, for example, that one on Westminster Bridge, that composed on a May morning, the one on the song of the Thrush, and that beginning"While beams of orient light shoot wide and high."] I. HAD this effulgence disappeared With flying haste, I might have sent, But 'tis endued with power to stay, What is ?-ah no, but what can be! Time was when field and watery cove While choirs of fervent Angels sang Or, crowning, star-like, each some sovereign height, Strains suitable to both.-Such holy rite, Than doth this silent spectacle-the gleam- II. No sound is uttered, but a deep The hollow vale from steep to steep, Herds range along the mountain side; Thine is the tranquil hour, purpureal Eve! An intermingling of Heaven's pomp is spread III. And, if there be whom broken ties Afflict, or injuries assail, Yon hazy ridges to their eyes Climbing suffused with sunny air, On those bright steps that heaven-ward raise Come forth, ye drooping old men, look abroad, And wake him with such gentle heed As may attune his soul to meet the dower IV. Such hues from their celestial Urn This glimpse of glory, why renewed? Nay, rather speak with gratitude; For, if a vestige of those gleams Dread Power! whom peace and calmness serve From THEE if I would swerve; Oh, let thy grace remind me of the light 'Tis past, the visionary splendour fades; And night approaches with her shades. 1818. Note. The multiplication of mountain-ridges, described at the commencement of the third Stanza of this Ode, as a kind of Jacob's Ladder, leading to Heaven, is produced either by watery vapours, or sunny haze; -in the present instance by the latter cause. Allusions to the Ode, entitled 'Intimations of Immortality,' pervade the last stanza of the foregoing Poem. X. COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SHORE. [THESE lines were suggested during my residence under my Son's roof at Moresby, on the coast near Whitehaven, at the time when I was composing those verses among the "Evening Voluntaries" that have reference to the sea. It was in that neighbourhood I first became acquainted with the ocean and its appearances and movements. My infancy and early childhood were passed at Cockermouth, about eight miles from the coast, and I well remember that mysterious awe with which I used to listen to anything said about storms and shipwrecks. Sea-shells of many descriptions were common in the town; and I was not a little surprised when I heard that Mr. Landor had denounced me as a plagiarist from himself for having described WHAT mischief cleaves to unsubdued regret, Daily to think on old familiar doors, Hearths loved in childhood, and ancestral floors; To ruminate on that delightful home Which with the dear Betrothed was to come; Or in a dream recalled, whose smoothest range Such as my verse now yields, while moonbeams play |